The cloister was dark and cool. I called out as I entered, but there was no reply. The gatehouse was unoccupied; the abbey seemed deserted. I ran down the broad, sunny slype between the dorters but saw no one. I passed the refectory, the kitchens, the empty chapter house, making my way toward the church. It would be almost time for Sext, I told myself; perhaps the new abbess had called a meeting.
As I approached the chapel I heard voices and chanting. Suddenly wary, I pushed open the door. All the sisters were present. I could see Perette; Alfonsine with her thin hands clasped at her chin; fat Antoine with her moony face and weak, excited eyes; stolid Germaine with Clémente at her side. There was silence as I came in and I blinked, disorientated by the dark and the reek of incense and the faces reflected in the light of many candles.
Alfonsine was the first to move. “Soeur Auguste,” she exclaimed. “Praise God, Soeur Auguste. We have a new-” Her voice broke in what might have been excitement. I was already looking beyond her, my eyes moving eagerly in search of the wise, bright lady of my expectation. But beside the altar I saw only a young girl of eleven or twelve, her small, pallid face impassive beneath a neat white wimple, her hand held out in a limp gesture of benediction. “Soeur Auguste.” The voice was as small and cool as its owner, and I was suddenly very aware of my hoydenish appearance, of my flying curls, my glowing cheeks.
“Mère Isabelle.” Alfonsine’s voice quavered with self-importance. “Mère Isabelle, the Reverend Mother.”
For a second, my surprise was such that I almost laughed aloud. She could not be speaking of this child. The thought was absurd-this child with my mother’s name must be some novice, some protégée of the new abbess who must even now be smiling at my mistake…Then our eyes met. Hers were very light but without brilliance, as if all her vision were turned inward. Looking into her wan young face I could see no gleam of humor, no pleasure, no joy.
“But she’s so young!” It was the wrong thing to say. I knew it immediately and regretted it, but in my surprise I had spoken my thought aloud. I saw the girl stiffen, her lips half open to reveal small, perfect teeth. “Ma mère, I am sorry.” Too late to unsay my words, I knelt to kiss the pale outstretched hand. “I spoke without thinking.”
I knew even as I felt the cool fingers beneath my lips that my apology was not accepted. For a moment I saw myself through her eyes: a sweating, red-faced island woman, hot with the forbidden scents of summer.
“Your wimple.” Her coldness was catching, and I shivered. “I-I lost it.” I faltered. “I was in the fields. It was hot…”
But her attention was already elsewhere. Her pale eyes moved slowly, incuriously across the faces turned in expectation toward her. Alfonsine watched her with an adoring expression. The silence was like ice.
“I was Angélique Saint-Hervé Désirée Arnault,” she said in a small, expressionless voice, which nevertheless penetrated me to the bone. “You may think me young for the part God has chosen for me. But I am God’s mouthpiece here, and he will give me the strength I need.”
For an instant I felt sorry for her, so young and defenseless, trying so hard to maintain her dignity. I tried to imagine what her life must have been, reared in the oppressive climate of the Court, surrounded by intrigue and corruption. She was a thin little thing: their banquets and sweetmeats, the guinea fowl basted with lard, the pies, the pièces montées, the trays of peacocks’ hearts and baked foie gras and larks’ tongues in aspic only serving to sharpen her disgust of their excesses. A sickly child, not expected to survive beyond her teens, drawn to the Church through its ceremony, its dark fatalism, its intolerance. I tried to imagine what it must be like for her, cloistered at twelve, repeating as if by rote the pronouncements of her religious tutors, closing the door on the world before she even understood what it had to offer.
“There has been enough laxity here.” She was speaking again, her nasal intonation sharpening as she strained to be heard. “I have seen the records. I have seen what manner of indolence my predecessor was pleased to tolerate.” She glanced briefly in my direction. “I intend to change this from today.”
There was a low murmur among the sisters as her words reached them. I caught sight of Antoine, her face slack with puzzlement.
“First,” continued the girl, “I wish to mention the matter of dress.” Another sharp flick of the eyes in my direction. “I have already noticed a certain-carelessness-among some of you, which I consider unbefitting to members of our sisterhood. I am aware that the previous abbess tolerated the wearing of the quichenotte. This practice will cease.”
To my right, old Rosamonde turned a bewildered face toward me. Light from the window above her fell onto her white bonnet. “Who is this child?” Her thin voice was querulous. “What is she saying? Where is Mère Marie?”
I shook my head fiercely at her, miming silence. For a moment she seemed about to continue, then her wrinkled face crumpled, her eyes moist. I heard her mumbling to herself as the new abbess continued: “Even in so short a time I cannot help but notice certain irregularities in procedure.” The nasal voice might have been reading from an ecclesiastical textbook. “Mass, for example. I find it difficult to believe that for a matter of years no mass at all has been said in the abbey.”
There was an uneasy silence.
“We said prayers,” said Antoine.
“Prayers are not enough, ma fille,” said the child. “Your prayers cannot be sanctified without the presence of a minister of God.”
I could feel laughter pressing against my belly at every word she spoke. The ridicule of the situation momentarily overturned my sensation of unease. That this sickly child should preach to us, frowning and pursing her lips like an old prude and calling us her daughters was surely a monstrous joke, like the valet dressing in his master’s clothes on Fools’ Day. Christ in the temple was surely another such travesty, preaching contrition when he should have been running in the fields or swimming naked in the sea.
The child-mother spoke again. “Henceforth mass will be celebrated every day. Our eight daily services will be resumed. There will be fasting for all on Fridays and on holy days. I’ll not have it said that my abbey was ever a place of indulgence or excess.”
She had found her voice at last. The reedy treble had taken on a demanding note, and I realized that behind her wan self-importance there was hidden a kind of zeal, almost of passion. What I had taken for shyness I now recognized as high-bred contempt of the type I had not heard since I was at Court. My abbey. I felt a stab of annoyance. Was the abbey her plaything, then, and were we to be her dolls?
My voice was sharper than I intended as I spoke out. “There’s no priest but on the mainland,” I said. “How can we have mass every day? And who’ll pay for it if we do?”
She looked at me again and I wished I had not spoken. If I had not already made an enemy of her, I thought, this scornful outburst must surely have tipped the balance. Her face was a tight bud of disapproval.
“I have my own confessor with me,” she said. “My good mother’s confessor, who begged to come with me to help in my work.” I could have sworn that as she spoke she flushed a little, her face slightly averted and a touch of animation coloring her flat voice. “Let me introduce Père Colombin de Saint-Amand,” she said with a small gesture toward the figure that only now detached itself from the shadow of a pillar. “My friend, teacher, and spiritual guide. I hope he will soon become as dear to you all as he is to me.”